


Terrible Twos

by Tshilaba



Category: Death Note
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 16:04:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5254589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tshilaba/pseuds/Tshilaba





	Terrible Twos

One would think running a day care, Roger Ruvie would love children; he didn't. He found them to be close to the foulest, most annoying creatures on earth, especially the very young, and very intelligent ones that had recently been placed in his care. Were it not for his dear friend, Quillish Wammy, having been the one to ask him, he would have said no immediately and fled the country. But, as it were, it _was_ Quillish, therefore Roger went along with it, much as he despised it.

Now, there were two newcomers that seemed to be very different from the rest. They were the youngest, only two, yet they not only didn't appear shy, they didn't appear to want to interact with the other children at all. Roger would have never even worried about it at all were it not for the fact that L, no more than a preteen himself, found it necessary to constantly remind the old man of that fact.

“Children are supposed to want to interact with each other. Yet one just sits by himself playing on that portable game, while the other keeps to himself munching on the chocolate his mother left him with. Why do you suppose that is?” L constantly asked.

“I don't know, L,” Roger always sighed. “Perhaps they're like you.”

“Perhaps...”

***

One day, about noon, it started storming. All the children were used to it, they were children after all. Storms were only frightening at night, in the dark, when the wind howled like a wild beast and thunder boomed, and lightening flashed.

But the small blond, who'd always been more focused on his chocolate than any of the children, jumped every time lightening cracked through the sky. He stayed huddled in the corner of the room, quivering in fear and whimpering every time thunder boomed.

Roger sighed. Children were too much hassle, they truly were. He crossed the room from where he had been ushering the other children away from the window, just in case something happened, and said, “Come on, son, come over here with the rest of us. Nothing's going to harm you.”

The boy shook his head and scampered away from the man, moving to another corner, this one a bit closer to the red head who was still absorbed in his game as if it was still sunny and clear out.

_I give up_ , Roger thought to himself with a huff.  _Horrid brat_ . He made his way back over to the rest of the children to break up a small scuffle over a toy between two girls, putting the blond and red headed boys out of his mind.

L stayed in his usual corner across the room, in his customary sitting position, observing them.  _They are different then the other children. I've seen the red head focus on something for no more than a few minutes before seemingly losing interest and spacing out. I doubt he's truly losing interest though; I believe it's something else. Perhaps his brain processes things more quickly than even some close to my intelligence. And that blond...While he seems uninterested with the rest of the children, I wonder if it's really that he's been observing them, and the differences between the children and the red head..._

Thunder boomed loudly, shaking the small building. A few children squeaked, but that was all.

The blond, however, yelped and buried his head between his knees.

Upon hearing the yelp, the red head looked up from his game and turned to look at the shaking blond. He tilted his head in curiosity, taking in the quivering figure and studying it like it was one of the most interesting things in the world. A crack of lightening pulled another almost panicked yelp from the blond, and the red head pocketed his game and stood up, making his way closer to the blond. “Hey,” he said softly as he knelt down in front of the other boy.

The blond head shot up. Deep blue eyes, wide with fear, caught the red head's own green ones. “H-hey,” the blond mumbled shakily. It was a little quieter now, so he felt a little safer. And the red head seemed a lot more friendly that grumpy old man that “took care of them”.

“My name's Matt. What's yours?”

“M-Mello,” Mello replied.

“That's a nice name,” Matt said, grinning. “But why are you scared? You don't like the storm?”

“Uh-unh!” the blond answered, shaking his head fiercely. “They're loud and really scary!”

“Aww, they're nothing to be scared about,” the red head said, sitting down cross-legged near Mello. “Is it the thunder that bothers you?”

A nod.

“Heh, that's just Grandpa bowling in heaven's what my daddy always says,” Matt chuckled.

“Really?”

“Yep. And is bowling scary?”

“Well...no, but the ball's really heavy. Daddy let me hold his one time. I almost dropped it,” the blond replied.

“See? Nothing to be afraid of then.”

“Yeah. I guess you're right.”

***

“You're ignoring facts, Roger. As always,” the raven-haired boy stated bluntly.

“How am I ignoring facts, Lawliet?” Roger sighed. If those brats weren't enough to drive him mad, this boy surely was. 185 IQ level or not, the boy was a migraine-inducing menace.

“Those two, they're not normal children. Their speech patterns, have you heard them? They remind me of what Wammy said I spoke like when I was their age. They're much more intelligent than average two-year olds.”

“That's their parents' problem, not mine,” the man replied.

“Intelligence is  _ never _ a problem,” L hissed, before turning on his heel and leaving the room, leaving Roger with the twenty children that were the bane of his existence.

***

Mello marched up to his red headed friend the next day. “You're wrong,” he said simply.

“What about?” Matt mumbled, not looking up from his game.

“'Bout what goes on during a storm. Mama says it's not your grandpa bowling. They're moving pianos for God.”

“Hmm. Daddy don't believe in God, so he never told me that,” was the red head's only answer.

“Oh.” Mello thought for a moment and took a bite of his chocolate.

“I've been meaning to ask you though,” Matt said slowly, tapping the buttons on his game a little harder as he spoke. “Why are you always eating chocolate?”

“Why are you always playing games?” the blond countered.

The red head shrugged. “It's just about the only thing I can actually stay focused on, really. Everything else is uninteresting, 'cept you.”

“Okay.” Mello sat down beside his friend. “Hey, Matt, wanna do something fun?”

Matt glanced up, his eyes glinting mischievously, as he grinned. “Sure.”

***

In all honesty, Roger never knew what hit him. One day, he had a two-year old red head that did nothing but play games, and a two-year old blond that refused to speak or interact with anyone. The next, he had a pair of trouble makers that could give him a worse migraine than L Lawliet. He couldn't separate the two without the both of them throwing an absolute fit; the two could scream when they wanted to, and that was enough in and of itself to give the man a migraine to last a week. If he even attempted to put them in time out, even away from any objects that could be thrown, they managed to find some way to chuck something at him or the poor children with the sad misfortune to be caught in the crossfire. And their parents. Their parents believed that their boys were absolute  _ angels _ and were glad that they'd made friends with each other.

It made Roger want to pull out what little hair he had left thanks to the two already. In the span of just the week they'd been friends, they had pantsed Roger three times, dumped paint on a poor little brunette named Linda(and that was simply because she'd said that Mello's hand painting looked like an elephant had done it), shove no less than four kids into the mud just outside the near the sandbox, and had even stolen chocolate from L. Oddly enough, the preteen didn't seem to mind in the least that some of his sweets were stolen. It was almost as if he was ...testing their ability to reason. But that was preposterous. They were two years old. They had no reason; they acted based on wants, emotions, and desires. Yet he sat there, watching in disbelief as L asked the boys a question that two two-year old children would have never had the ability to reason, and they answered within minutes.

“How on earth?” Roger asked in disbelief.

“What?” the raven-haired boy asked as he presented the boys with their rewards, Mello a bar of chocolate and Matt a cherry-flavored lollipop. “I told you they were far more intelligent than normal children.”

“T-that's not...Why are you giving those...those  _ trouble makers _ sweets?” the man spluttered angrily.

L simply rolled his eyes. “There's a reason this stage of life is called the Terrible Twos. All children act out at this age, regardless of IQ level. But these two in particular are very special,” he said giving the two boys each a pat on the head.

“And why's that?”

“Because they truly are the 'Terrible Two'. They could probably outsmart even my own intelligence if they tried; but they make a very good team.”

“Yes, pranksters the both of them.”

“But  _ intelligent _ pranksters,” the raven-haired boy emphasized.

Mello and Matt simply grinned widely.

_ Oh dear. The 'Terrible Two' will more than likely strike even more often now _ , Roger thought sadly. He would definitely need to speak with Quillish about someone taking over, and soon.


End file.
